The 2nd Amendment and the Preservation of Liberty

Following the shooting of Treyvon Martin earlier this year, liberals and progressives renewed their calls for more restrictions on firearms and repeal of Florida’s stand your ground law. Some called for the out right ban of handguns. Once again their justification is so-called public safety because they claim the police are entrusted with duty of protecting you. As I wrote in “The Police are Under No Legal Obligation to Protect You”, this assertion is patently false because courts throughout these United States have consistently held that police have no legal duty to provide police protection to any individual citizen.

That being the case, then there must be some other reason why liberals and progressives want the American people disarmed. In my mind, the answer is a no brainier; they know the only way they can force their statist policies down the throats of the American people is through the power of government and their biggest fear is the people will eventually draw a line in the sand and resist.

Statists worship at the alter of government and believe individual liberty is subordinate to the power and dictates of the state. An armed populace scares the hell out of these people. That is why they constantly misrepresent and demonize the right to keep and bear arms.

The Founders believed the people are sovereign and have the right and duty to resist an oppressive government; even the one they were establishing through the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Essay No.28, asserted that the people have the right to take up arms when their elected representatives betray them:

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence which is paramount to all positive forms of government… The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource, except in their courage and despair.”

In 1803, St. George Tucker, a judge on the Supreme Court of Virginia and later a United States District Court judge, published a five-volume edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries on English common law. In his analysis of these Commentaries, Tucker wrote:

“The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

Joseph Story, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1811 to 1845, construed the right to keep and bear arms as a check on oppressive government:

“One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms… The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful, to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men.

The importance of this article (Second Amendment) will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. …The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms had justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpations and arbitrary power of rulers; and it will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

Members of Congress, irrespective of party, are constantly drafting laws to make the federal government supreme and above the people. These so-called public servants view the people as submissive servants to government and classify those who speak out against their statist policies and usurpations as potential domestic terrorists. Patrick Henry foresaw this in 1788:

Become a member and support the TAC!

“We are told…that our own representatives-Congress-will not exercise their powers oppressively; that we shall not enslave ourselves… Who has enslaved France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, and the other countries that groan under tyranny? They have been enslaved by the hands of their own people. If it be so in America, it will be only as it has been every where else.”

If the police are under no legal obligation to protect you and an armed citizenry is essential for the preservation of liberty against an oppressive government’s laws and dictates, then the question that begs to be answered is: what do liberals and progressives have in store for the American people that would necessitate disarming us under the banner of public safety?

Bob Greenslade [send him email] has been writing for www.thepriceofliberty.org since 2003.Bob focuses his writing on issues surrounding the federal government and the Constitution. He believes politicians at the federal level, through ignorance or design, are systematically dismantling the Constitution in an effort to expand their power and consolidate control over the American people. He has dedicated himself to resurrecting the true intent of the Constitution in the hope that the information will contribute, in some small way, to restoring the system of limited government established by the Constitution.

The correct article title might be “The RTKBA and the Preservation of Liberty”, for there is no mention of anything from Clause 1 of the 2nd Amendment.
And through ignorance or design, the quotes from Joseph Story selectively fail to mention anything from Clause 1 of the 2nd Amendment. But Story was in fact on-point. I’ve attached Story’s Sec. 1890 that addresses the entire 2nd Amendment.
Alexander Hamilton is quoted, failing to mention anything from Clause 1. But in fact Hamilton and Madison both spoke of the need for Militia of the several States in The Federalist Papers, and in fact the Founders were in unanimous agreement on this existing institution and that it be maintained in the Constitution.

Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1890 (1833)
Amendment II
§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.
The Founders’ Constitution
Volume 5, Amendment II, Document 10http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs10.html
The University of Chicago Press

Totally agree. I would add ACTIVE participation in the election process to the list. I tell my representative what I expect from them when it comes to the 2nd amendment. What I expect is to GAIN ground in terms of freedom not lose it. I’d like the idiotic NFA to go away but in the mean time I want them to nibble away at it. I tell my friends how my reps respond and their tone/attitude. I give a little money to the ones that best reflect my views ( I don’t expect perfection, just progress until I can find someone better..) and I expose the ones that do not.

For me, as long as the elected officials actually leave office when they lose and as long as we remain in Ms. Wolfe’s “awkward stage” then we need to renounce violence and work towards our goals politically.

I reserve the right, however, to “revise and extend” my remarks.. as they say..

@bennettc There is no fair elections…..they control the counting of our votes, the Caucasus are meant to keep conservatives out of office…the Republicans voted that they can change? any candidate if they don’t like them…corruption in our voting process. I don’t see anyone going after obama with 108% of the votes? until we stop voter fraud, we will never get these people out of office. Nobody is ever prosecuted…these people are and will be getting away with murder.

The assertion that the liberals/progressives want to “disarm” citizens is as bogus as it is absurd. There are many in the left wing of politics who are members of the NRA, who are members of gun clubs, and who routinely hunt with firearms. Further, there is no legislation proposed or pending that I am aware of that would threaten the confiscation of guns from the citizens of the U.S.

@itchik @hevf1011 Okay, so Hevf1011 comes in with a polite, objective, and well thought article that DEFENDS your right-wing position. And Itchik, you come in with an incredibly insulting and condescending response. Let’s not be coy. One, any treaty from the UN would have to pass through our legislature with, as I recall, a 2/3rds majority. Frankly, the votes aren’t there. Two, I’ve heard this scare tactic line funded by insane conspiracy theory-powered ignorance before. And guess what, it still hasn’t happened. UN soldiers don’t patrol the United States, UN lawyers don’t tell little old US citizen what to do in World Court unless you royally screw something up with another country. Take your psychotic babble somewhere else… it’s laughable. The mere structure of your response above confirms to me that you’re a miscreant who lacks any education, be it formal or life experience.

Bob Greenslade [send him email] has been writing for www.thepriceofliberty.org since 2003.Bob focuses his writing on issues surrounding the federal government and the Constitution. He believes politicians at the federal level, through ignorance or design, are systematically dismantling the Constitution in an effort to expand their power and consolidate control over the American people. He has dedicated himself to resurrecting the true intent of the Constitution in the hope that the information will contribute, in some small way, to restoring the system of limited government established by the Constitution.